Media Releases

The future of work needs to be one where working people have good, satisfying jobs with decent incomes, and Labour’s announcements today on boosting skills are welcome, the CTU said today.

The Prime Minister needs to reassess his priorities and move urgently to stop working Kiwis losing up to a million dollars a day says CTU Secretary Sam Huggard.

The call follows the CTU’s request that the government urgently pass legislation to stop the clock on the six year limit that is writing off holiday back pay owed to working Kiwis.

The Government must take action urgently to prevent working people losing up to a million dollars a day in unpaid holiday pay while the multi-billion dollar payroll problem is fixed, says CTU Secretary Sam Huggard.

Working people are pleased that research commissioned by the Government is consistent with what working people have being saying – that 90 day fire at will periods are a failed experiment.

“Sustainable increases in our incomes depends on more being produced for every person in New Zealand and from every hour worked, but increases are weak according to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics out today,” says Bill Rosenberg, CTU Economist.

For the seventh year in a row the Government’s health budget is well short of what is needed to cover increasing costs, demographic changes and new policy initiatives.

CTU President Richard Wagstaff addressed the International Labour Organisation (the United Nations agency for work and employment) on Tuesday to focus global attention on the New Zealand government’s failure to protect working people in the face of the massive payroll systems failure that has left as many as three quarters of a million working New Zealanders out of pocket.

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou koutoa
I want to use this occasion to talk about the importance of the Labour Inspectorate function in enforcing ILO instruments.